Reverse Gear

Last few months have been somewhat hard. I am not talking about me but about the humanity, about our collective future (may be a little about me too ;)). Its long time that I have written something, it is not that I do not want to write or I do not have anything to write. There have been millions of thoughts and words kept forming in my mind but feeling was so overwhelming that containing those in single blog was not so easy. Therefore, I capitulated; thoughts flowed and lost like a river in sea. However, I had to overcome that hesitation at some point of time, regardless of what my personal crisis is, so here I am.

If you are going to continue on this blog then I should add a disclaimer. Please do not relate your personal life with the content written in the blog. Please make a note that if I would have been in your shoes, I would have actually acted in the same way (I actually am in your shoes). This is just the sentiment expressed keeping the bigger picture in view, and you might have to open your other eye to experience that view.

By just having a cursory glance around me and a small effort to look at the world I get a déjà vu that I am looking at some scenes from Matrix. Every scenes are pre-scripted and people are like robots who are doing exactly the same things that they are supposed to do (Again ex-claimer – Not saying I am any different). The interesting thing is, this movie has only three recurring scenes – one - a constant exercise of facial muscle along with multitudes clicking of camera, two - frantic typing on the keypad of phone, three - many stone face statues travelling in car, buses and bikes with earphone plugged in their ears. It just gives a chilling sensation of being in a bad sci-fi movie where whole world is remote controlled by some mighty corporation through the tools like earphone, camera and phone. We are living in a uni-dimensional world with our sight limited to a 45-degree view. We are missing or willfully ignoring the other 315 degree. It is I, my future, and then my children and their future, and many of us goes long way and reserve future for some thousand generations ahead. Forget about the atrocities we are perpetrating on the mother earth in the process, we cannot even think of our own next generation (except for some material wealth that might not even have significance) and what future they might have if we do not stop and change track.

India’s population is currently 1.324 billion. We are ready to overtake China (1.379 billion) any day. Currently our population growth rate is hopelessly high (~1.7%) to even dream to stabilize it to optimum level. We are already beyond the sustenance level that the earth can support. 2.4% of land in India is already supporting 17% of world’s population which itself is a nightmare in current state. Think about all those stampede death in Mumbai, traffic jam in Bangalore, huge crowd in Kolkata, sea of human in Bihar and UP and so on. This is the chaos that we face at current population level. Think about next 50 years. Even if we manage to miraculously lower the growth rate to 1% (which is next to impossible), our population will still be 65% more than today (2.178 billion). That means 850 million more people (around the combine population of whole Europe and Brazil together). Think about situation of Local train of Mumbai, roads of Bangalore and street of Kolkata with those extra 850 million people. Think about what will happen to our water system, our forest, our biodiversity, when we have 850 million extra mouths to feed. We cannot even achieve that for current 1324 million after depleting all our natural resources. It is a nightmare, which should haunt each one of us. However, are we even concerned? Do we even think about it? All we care about is to get a degree, get a job, get married, and start family and proliferate the Vansh (I cannot even fathom the Vansh crap). We do not even have slightest compunction about our contribution in making this world worse and worsen. It is the high time that we stop swooning over babies. We should stop thinking about it as a boon and start treating it like a grim moment. A moment that keeps propelling us towards the doomsday. Five thousand years ago, human race was fighting for its survival and reproduction was integral part of that survival plan. 5000 years later, we have entered the 21^st century and human race is again on verge of survival war. Only difference is this time war will not be fought with other species, this war will be fought among us and we will eventually sink and will take every sign of life on earth along with us. In order to win this survival war and save humanity along with the biodiversity, we need to embark upon a different path. Instead of celebrating creation of new life, it has to be made as a somber moment. A moment to stop and think about the future of those new lives and their expected contribution to the ongoing eternal survival war. I know, the moment you read these words it might seem blasphemous to you. How can we even dare to pop those thoughts in our mind? That is not how civilization has ever worked. However, like rules of wars, rules to live also changes. These are the time, which requires backward movement. Our survival war started with a primitive Neanderthal who first learnt to make fire and then different tools. We started our journey from there and moved to achieve bigger things. There was always a next, hunting to agriculture, agriculture to industrialization, industrialization to a cyber-age. We kept moving, we kept getting better at everything but we never learnt to stop. We do not even know what lies beyond and when to stop. This is the time. This is the time to move backward instead of forward. We do not need entire humanity to understand that. Even if half of the world grasp the gravity of this problem and be ready to make sacrifices, we might have small chance to save this wonderful world. Or else we are doomed to our own destruction. In Gandhiji’s own word, we have ample for everyone’s need not greed. Our greed had run amok for so long that we have reached to a point where there will not be any left for the “need”. It is the time that we take the reverse gear and start on a new radical path that will not only ensure our survival but also will give us chance to live a worthy life. 

Stop Please !!

I have not written anything from past 11 months. Not that it matters in grand scheme of things, but it definitely matters to me. As the world is going haywire more and more, I am getting more numb day by day. Past 11 weeks have been so overwhelming that no amount of paper, time and space would have been sufficient to fill my emotions. I am just dumbfounded to pen down anything.

We live in hope that each of our tiny action will make this world a better place and that’s the hope that keep us nimble, alive, and active. But what happens when your hope is getting extinguished slowly, that’s when you lose your voice, you just become speechless. I am not a quitter, I never can be but that what’s scares me most. I can never stop to fight (or not), I can never be at peace.

Sorry, enough about my mumble jumble. I know if you ever dare to read this, your dare is fading at each advancing line. But hold on, I am coming back to the topic. Past one year, though it seems like one hour, but still I am going to ponder over the past 8784 hours. You may ask isn’t it too late to write about past year – But my numbness has made time flying for me. I am still living in Jan 2017 (or want to live). Jan 1917 would be more appropriate. World was in chaos then, but it still made more sense. Colonialism was at its apex, nationalism was just rousing its head, we were still dying in mass from diseases, hunger etc etc. Those were the terrifying but simpler time. Every events has a simpler explanation and we were standing at the juncture where we could have hoped for a better future. A better world where no one die of hunger and disease, where one can have freedom to express their thought and right to have a say in how they are governed. Those were the time when we were fighting for ideals, even though it was a terrible time, it was still an era of hope. We knew what we are doing now, will change the world and will make it a better place for generations to come.

Coming back to 100 years later (I have to literally drag myself as my mind adamantly refuses to come back to this glorious destructive era). “This is a very exciting time to live” - how many time we have heard this line on visual media. But is it? What excitement we are expecting in future? More sleek smartphone, our eyes as laptop screen, voice as command? More and more robots replacing human jobs with unhindered human population growth vying for ever depleting natural resources? Growth of regionalism, terrorism, regionalism, culturalism as culmination of increased competition for resource/jobs? Does that future seems exciting enough? Though our political and economic leaders, big corporates try to paint a very different picture for us, but in reality every phenomenon has a peak point beyond which it is impossible to achieve. “Impossible” word has become antithetical for human civilization and in 21^st century it attracts similar persecution as pronouncement of anti-Christ in medieval area. We are not allowed to say that it is impossible to achieve more growth, more technological achievement and we need to stop and retrace our steps a bit. We will be literally throttled by everyone and cast off as a big nuisance to society.

How good it looks when our statistical agencies come up with the growth number (any slide in number send us frenzy mood). Come at what cost, but we need maintain that figure. Mantra is very simple. Establish industry, cut forest, create more and more road, more and more flyover and buildings and growth will automatically fall into our bag. We are only looking at the curve of economic growth, concentrating only on that and forgetting that every other aspects are sliding out of our hand further, and further.

The industrial revolution, when the story of modern growth first started, it also started considerable conflicts in terms of resource sharing. In order to have a control over resources (man power and nature power), European nation started vying with each other to win over more and more land and slaves for themselves. They justified their action with moral euphemism of “obligation to civilize the 3^rd world”, “proliferation of science and technology, economic growth” etc etc. Hence we started seeing a logarithmic rise of economic growth but as well as also the growth of moral degradation. As soon as world power established their hegemony, there was the elusive decline of conflict as the world order was established by suppressing the weak and creating immoral pact with strong (remember the straight line division of Africa?). We still has ample for everyone to share. But this illusion of peace was not maintained for long and soon we witnessed many wars including war for independence by different servitude nations along with 2 world wars as last attempt to hold on to ancient world order.

As we reached mid-20^th century, we reached at the verge of high economic growth along with least conflict as ideal of world peace, democracy and equal opportunity were forefront in everyone’s mind. This was the time we started moving from social democracy to economic democracy. Very soon we achieved peak of everything – economic growth, technical growth, scientific growth, conflict resolution. This is where we started slipping. We reached an equilibrium but we could not maintain that equilibrium. We kept striving for more growth that started coming at price of other inevitable aspects of civilization – environment, peace, spirituality.  Where we stand today? Environment is worsening, we are losing biodiversity, forest, wetland at ever increasing pace. Habitable space is shrinking fast. Resources inevitable for a quality life are depleting/disappearing fast. As resources disappear, concept of globalization will be damned forever. In order to have control on resource, people will start looking more and more inwardly. There will be more polarization in the name of nation, region, religion, gender, race, caste etc.  Rise of phenomenon of terrorism is the direct result of this. Until now we have been witnessing phenomena of group polarization in terms of terrorism or race/caste chauvinism. We still had weapon of our democratic ideal against such evils. But then the year 2016 came and showed us that the weapon that has saved us hitherto is no longer effective. The long tentacle of evil has wrapped us from all around and has started the process of choking us. And we still believe that we are living in exciting time and hoping for a bright future. But be aware, next 3^rd quarter of 21^st century is going to be the most trying time of all the 5000 years of human civilization.

I am not predicting doomsday, but that is not far if we still don’t wake up and start calling a spade a spade. We are still living in illusion that was created after 2^nd world war. We are still striving for what western country achieved after industrial revolution. But time has changed, circumstance has changed but we are still not ready to acknowledge it and still blindly following the path that has been laid out after the industrial revolution. Industrial revolution was break from medieval past and that break made us to move forward. What we need now is to stop and break from modern past and take a different route towards a different civilization.

At each and every moment, my mind is crying aloud “Stop Please” and, funny, even I am not listening.

Our Culture their culture

Our culture their culture, our language their language, our religion their religion, the sacred line has been drawn, the tug of war has been started, the clueless game of mindless, substance less cultural superiority has begun. Beware the human race, gone are the days of natural selection, we have now new theory of survival – “Cultural Selection”.

Culture is a very complex phenomenon that encompass everything, from the religion to the food we ate to the cloth we wear.  Human being has always been choosing the subset (in form of either language, religion etc.) of this broad set to rally masses behind them to advance their parochial interests that could be either personnel or not personnel. It all comes to this, isn’t it? All this so called Jehad, honour killing, racism, casteism, communalism etc. etc. are nothing but just a one liner – my culture is better than yours, you accept it or perish to the doom.

The mindless quest of human race or individual to achieve cultural superiority is beyond my comprehension. It’s nothing but the two neighbors fighting with each other over their Garden’s Roses by saying my rose is better than yours. Why can’t they enjoy each other roses and be elated by discovering the varieties of roses in different gardens. Just imagine how boring it would be when every house in a village just have one type of rose. Just think how ridiculous it would be when both families start baying for each other blood, just to preserve the claim of superiority of bunch of Roses in their garden.

“These roses are part of our garden, our family for generations, let’s not be there one head on their torso who tries to defy honour of our roses, let’s all vow to protect honour of our Roses till our death” – This would be the passionate and rousing speech by the head of the family to their members.

This might sound ridiculous to the core but at the macroscopic level that is what nevertheless is happening in world around us. The senseless mob goes behind their leader for some reason which is nothing but matter of establishing cultural superiority.

Instead of rejoicing on variety all around us, instead of having curiosity to grasp a vast knowledge strewn all over world due to cultural varieties, human kind has always been engaged in tussle of imposing or protecting their culture on one or other or from one or other.

Just sometimes back I read a news where author announces proudly that “A Hindu has been appointed for so and so post in US”, for a moment I felt an emotion of pride immediately followed by a pang of pain. Our mind is so socially wired to have a huge socio-cultural ego in terms of the “language we speak, food we eat, cloth we wear, song we sing, god we worship, our customs, our rituals, our beliefs, our faith etc.”.  That socio-cultural ego overpower our sense of reasoning and power of understanding. Hence the sense of cultural superiority feed our socio-cultural ego and led us to believe in our own individual superiority over others.

The propensity to overpower the human being at the other end of cultural line (some time to the extent of killing them), just because they have a different set of cultural customs and belief, which rational human mind can accept that? Who are to decide about superiority? Why do I have to proud of my heritage, why can’t I simply enjoy those wonderful heritage provided by accumulation of centuries of cultural assimilation along with having admiration of heritage of people at other side of cultural line. Every cultures are wonderful. They are not creation of one day or one year, they are the cumulative consciences of thousands of people over thousands of years. None are superior and none are inferior and World will not be complete by omitting even a tiny part of them.

Then why this madness to prove your superiority? All these dirty schemes, plots, frenziness and obsession – just to prove that you are superior, the faith you follow is superior, the ancient civilization that you have inherited is superior, the custom you follow is superior, the god you worship is superior?

As Gandhiji had said that ‘The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed’. Greed could be either material greed or so called spiritual or cultural greed. Each and every one of us are supplemented by our ancestors with wonderful heritage that would be enough for us to sustain and prosper as a community. We do not have place for cultural greed to overpower others or proclaim to protect ours, that would only take us towards the doom of human race. Human race has survived natural selection, it cannot survive cultural selection.

Beauty and the Beast

How many times we have read the stories of beautiful princesses, ladies with magnificent beauty or a beautiful damsel in distress? Beauty has always been glorified to such an extent that it often overshadows any virtues that mankind may possess. All these overhype about beauty that I have been hearing since my childhood, left me wondering that what it would be like to live in a world that does not have a differentiation line dividing mankind based on their look?

It’s not that I am not enamored by the magnificence of the beauty. Story of Cinderella, Snow White and multiple other beautiful princesses has nonetheless dazzled me. It was a general accepted idea that any uncle or brother should have a beautiful wife. A simmering blindfold made up by millions of stories, movies and social heresy is on eyes of each of us that dazzles us to a divine effect of beauty. The effect of that blindfold has been wearing off for some time (For me) and in the process it has led me to realize the ugly truth behind the notion of beauty. Suddenly my mind has started hitting me with questions about the logic of the rules of this illogical world.

Why beauty is important? Why a beautiful person should be credited with extra merit that might tower all other merits. A person does not choose their look, they are just born with it. Why such a quality on which mankind has no control should be the dominating factor. We do not choose the way we look, and don’t earn our look too then why should be we rewarded/punished for something we never worked for.  

You might argue that talent count too. Nobody would like a silly and beautiful person. But that just an empty argument. We all know that the effort a simple looking person has to put to make an effect on society and how easy it comes to an attractive person. And what about “made-in-Heaven” marriages? This “so called” holy and life size decision is made purely based on look. “Looking for a fair, beautiful/Handsome Bride/Groom”, who want a non-fair and ugly one?

To a certain extent our professional life has come to be defined by our merit (though so called beautiful person still has some edge, which of course is regardless of their merit), our personal and social life is still largely defined by the way we look. Men kind has always tried to eliminate variable from their life. We have always tried to write our destiny since the time memorial. But why we have failed to eliminate the biggest variable from our life – “Our Look” – on which we have no control. If we closely look at this issue then we can narrow this problem down to the one half of the humanity. While the one half – male – has been able to successfully elevate their merit upon their look (not completely though), the other half – Female – is still being perished under the tight shackle of beautiness. Looking beautiful has been the prime motive of female since the time immemorial and this convention is only growing stronger. I often see parents brimming with pride on their beautiful daughter, as though she has won the biggest crown purely on her merit. Has she?

The chain of beauty has been throttling us, slowly and gradually sipping the life out of us. What worry you have in your life if you are a fair maiden, and how treacherous the life path is for a simple girl and that’s just because of an accident, an accident called “Gene”. The curse of beauty has been made permanent on the femalekind by trillion dollars of “Beauty” industry. All you have to do is look pretty to stand out in this world.  If you do not pass the eligibility criteria then don’t worry our trillion dollar industry is working hard to elevate you to that position, which has nevertheless been defined by them.

The biggest culprit are our art and literature. Why god/goddess, heroes/heroines etc are portrayed as beautiful and villain as ugly? Why a good person is to be beautiful and bad person to be ugly? Who defines the criteria of beauty? We have talked about discrimination based on caste, race, religion, gender, class etc. Why have we not yet added the discrimination criteria of “look”, which is the most prevalent form of discrimination all over the world? I guess we don’t have answer for that. We might achieve gender disparity in next 1000 years but we still wouldn’t dare to speak against “Look Disparity”. Ours is a society of hypocrites and we would continue to be hypocrite. The real tragedy is that, now I wish that blindfold is tightened on my eyes again so that I do get the courage of living in the world of hypocrites.

Innovation, Invention or Annihilation

I would hate myself for quoting the one of the most hated villain of Harry Potter – “Progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged”. But what was dangerous in that context is very much relevant in today’s context.

The meaning of progress might differ from person to person. For someone moving towards betterment, some might define it as finding solution and solving problem or for some it is just moving from status quo. We might not realize but in today’s world the term progress sugar coated in jargons like innovation, invention etc has reduced to nothing but giving push to “status quo”. A slicker phone, a device that could take command from your eye movement, making Nano devices into Pico, femto or atto device – it’s just how far you can think. It’s all about what next, not about what purpose the progress is serving.

Many of you sneer at me for being so anti-technological. You would love to brand person like me as anti-progress, traditionalist etc etc. Remember the middle century, when church used to persecute scientists. That was the religious crusade. Today is the world of science crusade, anyone having doubt about so called scientific progress deserve social and political crucification. I would still put my thought forward. Take a step back and think what purpose these 250 years (taking industrial revolution as base) of scientific progress has served? At first lets just talk about the indicators of Human Development Index (HDI), which is a generally acceptable criteria.

Mean year of schooling of the world as a whole is not more than 5 years (lowest being less than 1 year for Burkina Faso and Highest for UK 13.8 years). In Ancient Greece, China and India children used to get on an average 5 years of education. Worldwide life expectancy is 71 years but there are around 30 countries whose life expectancy vary within 45-55 years. That’s certainly not better than what we had in before and early Christian era. We have made phenomenal progress in terms of getting cure of diseases and controlling spread of many communicable diseases that has contributed in increasing life expectancy. But at that front also (which is actually a genuine scientific achievement) we have nonetheless become prisoner of our own so called broad mindset – “progress for the sake of progress”. Once we didn’t have enough problem to find solution we started creating problem and that is what is happening in world of pharmaceutical research today. One pill for every damn problem, who cares for the source of the problems or the consequences of solution being creator of more problems.

Moving to the next indicator – that is GNP per capita. Talking about wealth, are we wealthier or well off today? Wealth is a relative term and counting them in terms of rupees or dollars would be as misleading as terming Voldemort as source of all evil. Your wealth should be able to fulfill all your needs, wants and desires. If we quantify those criteria then certainly we are much poorer than our predecessors and our wants and desires are multiplying faster than increase in our wealth.

So all in all we are not better off than what we were before. There was a time when progress was necessary to save children, to ward off diseases, to remove ignorance etc. I wouldn’t list hunger, as earth has always provided us enough to lead a healthy life and men has always found a way to get it from nature either its primitive agriculture, hunting or gathering, technology has broadened the choice of food and that doesn’t mean it has made it better. So there was a time when technological progress was a tool to problem solving. When we had less problems, then technology transformed itself problem solver to problem creator. More the merrier, and hence it remained relevant, not only relevant it has become next god. We might talk and talk about human achievement but a cursory glance at our surrounding would tell us that nothing has changed. The more we are connected, the more distant we are, the more we are safe, the more prone to danger we are, the more we achieve, the more we are losing, the more we solve, the more problem we are creating. It’s just a battle of moving to and fro from your status quo. You move an inch forward and you are hurled 2 inches backward.

The hell has opened. I am ready to be crucified :P

Fact, Fantasy, History and us

I have always struggled with queerness of history. How do you come to term with something whose interpretation is wide open, whose horizon is limitless? Physical Science mostly deals with inanimate objects that can be categorized, characterized with clear distinction and any change in those characters can clearly be captured and predicted. History could be termed as an imprecise science that has to deal with human being and that’s what make it wide open for different interpretations by different people or groups.

What makes me wonder is how we come to conclusion and arrive at a sequence of events that are woven by historians based on inadequate evidence. Perhaps that’s the reason that different interest groups are able to come up with their own version of history. That’s the reason we have left, right and different other ideologies that differs enormously in their interpretation of historical events.

Mankind has always looked for an identity to cling upon, in short term its religion, caste, race etc and in long term it’s always their history. That’s the reason history has always been subject of political scrutiny. It has been tool to influence mind and gain political score and that’s what has been happening in India today.

History of India is as complicated as (even more than) its geography and its diversity. In 1947 when India breathed its long overdue free air, it was a broken nation, nation with widespread poverty, hunger, illiteracy and was mired in deep muck of caste, creed, regionalism and communalism. It has nothing to be proud of except for some moment of Gandhi and Nehru. It was nothing more than a free beggar in a wide world street. Nothing changed much in subsequent years, thanks to the inherited colonial mentality and administration (Though honest effort of many leaders cannot be denied). We remained poor and scorned by western nation and denial continued. Denial of what we are, what have we become, and we instead clanged on some ancient glorious past to get past the inferiority complex of holding beggar bowl in front of the shiny suited captain America. What does it matter what we are at present, when we have inherited a glorious colourful cultural past and these new wealthy western nations are nothing but some money seeking uncultured lot with no past at all.

It all reminds me of a scene from Harry potter and half-blood prince where Marvolo Gaunt (Voldemort/Tom Riddle’s grand Father) who was living in the filth and obscurity but was full of pride for being heir of Slytherin that made him in constant denial of his present situation. But at least his pride was based on facts, but I am not even sure of what versions of our history have ability to tower all our misery and pain – version interpreted by left or version interpreted by right?

I don’t claim to have all those intellectual capability to refute or corroborate any version but as an ordinary Indian with limited intellectual capability I would like to raise just one question that has troubled me from my childhood. With 5000 years of glorious history why we have so few achievements that we can count on our finger tips? With hardly 400-500 years of history why achievement of USA has filled pages after pages. With same age as ours China has much more to boast than us (at least it was never ruled the way we were). I tried to find these answers in many history text books but I never could. It was same as the advertisement on Doordarshan when India’s only achievements were counted in form of Sachin Tendulkar and Aishwarya Rai ( not even a real achievement), we didn’t have much more than Aryabhatta, Chanakya, Varahmira (those certainly are real achievements) etc.

We claim to command 1/3^rd of world’s GDP till 1700 (more or less).  What happens when a country’s citizen have so much money? They usually try to find new avenues to employ that money and that paves the way for innovation and invention. Nation and citizen thrives on those innovation and inventions and money keep getting multiply. But did that happen in India? I could hardly find mention of flourishing trade (its negligible compare to other nation, and mostly fictional rather than solid proof as we have in case of other civilisations). If that was the case India would have been different in 1757, when East India Company finally consolidated its presence in India.

A near closed economy with hardly and research and development, where did all the money actually go? Were we rich or prosperous? There are significant differences between those.  A prosperous nation can boast of prosperity and industrious citizen with ample activities going on in its economy. On the other hand a rich nation can have all the money with large section of its masses keep facing misery and poverty, as happening in modern gulf countries. And that is what the gist of social and economic life of last 1500 years in the history of India.

Our present lethargy is product of past 1500 years of near insomnia. I am proud of tolerant culture of India that made it receptive to different ideas, cultures, religions and people. But that receptiveness has also infused letharginess into our DNA that made us indifferent to happening around us. We readily yielded power to one elite section and kept ourselves busy in finding minimum sustenance for living. All riches went to rulers and all misery to ruled. That has been story of past 2000 years and it is still going on. The dazzling wealth that India has boasted did not belong to ordinary Indian like us but to the handful of ruling elite. That’s the reason we never could become inventive country despite of having enormous wealth. Ordinary Indians were busy in arranging basic sustenance for life. There is not much difference in ancient India and China but what small differences were there that made China a nation while India a consortium of fiefdom. I am not saying everything was wrong, I don’t even know if that’s true but one thing I can be sure of that something was wrong that made us to subjugate for hundreds of year despite having all the wealth and power.

My purpose here is not to belie or belittle India’s past. My purpose is to seek every question to cover 360 degree view of our history instead of just one sided view. We are not a mediocre nation and string tied to our history would not let us cross the line of mediocrity. History is like nostalgia that is good to cherish but could ruin us if we don’t let it go. As a nation we are still underachiever, we are performing below our potential; we have miles to cover before becoming a nation of achievers. We are here to create history for future generation not to submerge in deep and unknown water of our history.   

Inheritance

I was compelled to express my feeling, as I have been seeing the political bickering and mudslinging over our struggle to independence, where one party claim to inherit it all while other show no hesitation in discrediting its leader with all the venom it could muster. 

Following extract has been taken from a recent article (“History, battleground for politic” ) in The Hindu by Mr. Digvijaya Singh - “The problem with the RSS-BJP combine and their followers is that they don’t have any names worth mentioning among their leaders who might have contributed to the freedom struggle. That is probably the reason why they have been trying to appropriate the legacy of Gandhi, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Sardar Patel among others."

Are our political leaders so ignorant that they can wilfully pass such comments? How can any Indian try to appropriate something which is rightfully his/hers by birth right? 
We have been hearing for so long in different rallies, interviews and conferences where Congress proudly claims to be a party that took us through the longs years of struggle for independence and boastfully displays its inheritance over legacy of our forefathers. Other parties accept this and try to discredit congress by accepting theory of “safety valve” or by discrediting action of its leaders like Nehru. But how true the claims of Congress and how wrong are other parties in adopting such approach? 

Before independence the Indian National Congress was not just a party, it was a movement that included within its fold, individuals and groups which subscribed to widely divergent political and ideological perspectives. Communists, socialists and nationalists worked within or along with Congress to achieve the dream of independence. The war of independence in form of movement named Congress was waged by Indians for every Indian to achieve collective goal of peace and prosperity.  And after the independence each and every Indian national either it’s an individual, organisation or party have rightfully inherited the legacy of our forefather. 

After the independence when our forefather dreamed of multi party democracy in India and Congress decided to be one of the party in that system, from that moment it ceased to be a movement. From that moment it was just a party, which was certainly not equivalent to the INC before 26th January 1950, when India became a republic. Hence any claim of Congress that any party in India doesn’t have any names worth mentioning among their leaders who might have contributed to the freedom struggle is ridiculous. Gandhi, Nehru, Netaji, Patel belongs to all of us and every party has rightful claim on them. Can you deride AAP, which was established in 2012 and whose leaders weren’t even born at the time of independence, for not having any worthy leaders who fought for country’s independence? Or Congress will have right to flog them for hanging photos of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel or Subhas Chandra Bose in their office? These questions need not to be answered. 

The second issue pertain to efforts of other parties to beat Congress in its own game by discrediting its leaders like Jawahar Lal Nehru. Indians of our generation have notion of only two aspect of life – black and white and it never take any efforts for them to cover the distance between black and white. But the world is not divided between black and white and nor do any of its stories. To discard personality like Nehru ji would only confirm our short term memory where complexities of history have no place. 
I don’t want to go into length and breadth of life story of Nehru ji. But scrolling through the pages of his life would definitely corroborate his immense contribution to history of modern India. 

He brought the idea of socialism to Congress’s fold by working along with Subhas Chandra Bose. With Subhas Chandra Bose he infused the youthful energy in somewhat ageing Congress which was aptly recognised by Bapu. He was among the first who asked for goal of Purna Swaraj for India. He constantly fought for labours and peasantry and saw through many phases of struggles for India’s Independence. After independence he took the helm of India at a difficult time when equation of 1+1 needs not to be result into 2. Hence every action had unpredictable consequences and every decision, no matter how carefully planned, was like taking an unknown pill which might either heal you or poison you to the death. Don’t you think analysing those decisions now at cool air conditioned environment is a bit easier? 

My aim is not to glorify any individual here.  India’s independence was culmination of 200 years of struggle which involved many individual heroism, collective bravery and organised struggles. Long years of struggle enabled us to liberate not only from foreign rule but it was also liberation of mind that provided a base for us to build a strong democracy. Any attempt by individuals or parties to take all credit for efforts of 200 years or discredit leaders associated with such struggle should be forcefully thwarted. We can keep brooding on golden age of ancient India or we can try to savour the heroic achievement of modern India which would equip us for a much better future. Decision is yours.

Thought for Food

We might be a nation where 60% of population is below poverty level, where malnutrition is rampant or where 26% of population i.e. 310 million people still can't read or write but when it comes to political awareness we leave behind every single country in this world. Take the example of Bihar, It lacks even the basic necessity of decent life but Biharis are supposed to be one of the most politically cognizant people, they might not know what 2 + 2 yields but they know all rajnitik mapdand. 
So what is it? What is it that makes political awareness inversely proportional to the level of development in India when case is otherwise around the world? We have heard of phrase “Food for Thought” but what applies in India is “thought for food”. When chilling winter of North India strikes every sphere of common man life, hot political debate at every nook and corner of small town is what keeps people and atmosphere warm. Irony seems ubiquitous but when, as a country, have we stopped being ironic? 
When we got our independence in 1947 we had nothing but Gandhi, Nehru and Patel. Our forefather could not ensure 2 times meal for every Indian but a robust political system was established successfully. Democracy was our pride then and it is our pride now, we couldn't build anything else to be proud of. That's the reason party politics has seeped into our very central nervous system. 
We face thousands of election in our life time. Loksabha, Vidhansabha, Panchayat, Municipal, elections in our institute work place etc etc. Political awareness is the one area where we usually have a glimpse of empowerment. When I see my mom pitching for AAP and my dad for Namo, it gives me sense of hope, a hope for better India with its empowered masses. Different political parties, their politics despite of how dirty those are, they all are manifestation of this hope. Hope on which concept of India was built upon. I don't believe direct participatory democracy to be some westernized concept. It's was always there in our blood, right from Mahajanpada system to Maurya dynasty to Gupta dynasty and it will always be there. 
So let's get politicized, let's jump into Mahakumbh of Election-2014. Let's hope, lets vote J . 
Jai Bharat

On the name of God

I was watching “Lincoln” and argument of one congressman during the discussion in congress on 13th amendment drew my attention. It was something like that “We are trying create law to give equal status to those whom god has created unequal” and there was huge applaud on that statement. God has created unequal????

First question that popped up in my mind was how the heck he knows that, did god tell him that?

One quick retrospect on my life and I could see this very simple fact that how on numerous occasions I have heard such statement in my life. How many people have tried to justify their act by telling it's a natural order created by god? Natural order like position of women, black people, SC, ST etc.

“On the name of god let's kill the infidel”, “we are on holy mission to eradicate dirt from society”, “god has instructed me to carry his word to the masses”, “God has shown me the righteous path”, “God wants us to build this temple”, “God wants us to throw these sinners out”, “God has created you like that so don't forget your position” etc. What the hell have we become, and on the name of whom? Someone who resides in our imagination, some who has been planted in our consciousness in different form through different religious concept?

In our one tiny insignificant life how many acts we have actually justified on the name of god?

Of course, it is countless. We have been doing it since the ancient time.

Invasion of foreigners -concept of survival, on the name of god.

Extension of empire with countless war by dynasty such as Maurya, Gupta, Hunas, Sakas-on the name of god.

Holy war, crusades, Religious extension through war and invasion – on the name of god

Colonialism in garb of educating racial inferior people by racial superior people- on the name of god.

Racial extermination by Nazis and others – on the name of god And present, numerous wars, terrorism, communalism etc – all on the name of god.

If you just try to count wish of god you would be amazed by the caprices and contrast wishes of our gods. We the people of earth planet who try to carry wishes of god have actually no idea about what they are and what they are doing.

We are just some abominable creature who tries to justify their heinous acts by aligning it to wishes of some super natural whom we have never, seen, heard or felt. By doing this we capitulate, both in terms of taking responsibility and taking accountability. It gives us satisfaction to think that our act is not our but part of some greater design of greater good by some great power.

We are deemed to be intelligent creature and supposed to think and act by our own mind. So why pretend?

So please by the name of god stop piggy backing god to achieve your own means

A Passage to India

I never truly believed in god. I am not a blind believer and I question a lot, if not articulated then in my mind. I don't believe on great personalities and I am never interested in listening to them. But as it is said that exceptions occur for every possible thing in nature, I am no exception. There is one personality whom I truly venerate. I get goose bumps just by mention of his name. Hopelessness gives way to hope and light suddenly glows at the end of long dark tunnel. I am not writing this to start any discussion (We already have plenty of that) on good and dark side of Bapu.

No person can lead an unblemished life and Bapu is not an exception of that. It's going to be 100 years of journey that Bapu took to get a glimpse of India. When Mahatma Gandhi landed in India in 1915, mesmerized mass requested him to lead them in their struggle just as he did in South Africa. But Gandhiji declined. He has been away from India so long and he first wanted to understand India and Indians before claiming to become their voice. He traveled thousands of kilometers in 3rd class of Indian Railway to get the sense of India.

When I think of his journey in one century old India, I wonder how it would be in this new India. How much has it changed? What difference Bapu would find in today's India? Would he be happy, sad, astonished or shocked?

Let's live the Bapu' journey and see what has changed in 100 years.

Let's start from Kashmir. Nothing has changed except for the sight of ubiquitous military uniform and artificial drawn line across the body of Kashmir. Endless bickering of two countries and innocent citizens squeezed between them. Nothing has changed. It still has got its beauty, It is still located at the same latitude and longitude but what is missing is its soul which has been trapped somewhere between the skirmishes of two nations.

Coming down the line is our own Delhi. Nothing has changed here also except for “Pehle yaha Raja ki Darbar lagti thi, ab yaha AAP ki talwar chalti hai” (I don't think I need to translate into English. Just scrap it thinking it as crap ;)). Gandhiji will get his life time of shock if he decides to sit inside the parliament house. The sacred house of democracy which was supposed to be for people, created by people has everything in it except for the people. Janta is missing from every power corridor of Delhi. Nothing has changed, it was missing then in 1915 also and it is still missing after 100 years.

Next journey to Bihar, UP and north east is no different. He couldn't be more horrified.

One would expect things to change in 100 years for good, not to exacerbate it further. You might argue about all those progress during those years. Yes progress has happened, but it has only changed the packaging. Content is still rotting inside the shining package and our leaders are fighting among themselves to give more polish to package and make it shinier.

Journey of Gandhiji would not be any different from the one taken in 1 century back. For name sake Indian railway might have removed the 3rd class but today's 2nd class is much worse than that third class.

Numbers are what dominate our mind today – GDP number, IIP number, this index-That index. Quantity has eclipsed the quality, but what we forget are that numbers always grow with time and growing number can never be indicator of progress. But we keep trying to console ourselves by these numbers.

Gandhiji dreamt of a healthy India governed by healthy, educated and spiritual Indians. He dreamt of self-sufficient and content economy. We might have traversed the 66 years after the independence but we could barely increase our %age contribution in world economy. Everything is still at the same place what it used to be.

So what has changed in between? Nothing, except for oriental face of ruler instead of western face. Motto is same, intention is same – Keep ruling, keep exploiting. Jai Hind :)